Allergy Season

Spring time awakens and re-births so much sleeping beauty, this innate grace goes unnoticed until everything starts to bud, until the most delicate greens begin to stretch their bodies from the ground and …. until the dormant trees come back to life and start to release their pollen.

The amazement of Spring, for a lot of people turns into the brain fog and watery gaze of counting the days until the pollens, molds and dust mites transmorph into anything that can show up as different and “could the next month and season please get here”…..because breathing from the nose and not gauging at our itchy eyes is not too much to ask for.

Why is it that some of us go through spring in la la land like chirping birds and some of us are afraid to go outside because we can’t stay on top of our allergies and we live in Spring misery?

We’ve been taught to blame it on the trees, grasses and pollens but let’s give these guys a break. If the buds and the wind swept fuzz of pollens were truly the cause of allergies, we’d all have allergies.

When I was in High School, my parents decided that we’d move from Ottawa, Ontario to Fort Lauderdale, Florida on a bit of a whim. Having never had an allergy to anything, I was suddenly allergic to everything around me . People use to say to me “oh, the pollens and grasses here are awful….it’s the pollen and grasses”. This, of course made sense to me, which stood to reason that Claritin and Hismanal rapidly and without question became one of my food groups.

Imagine my dismay three years later when I moved back to my home town of Ottawa and my allergies stayed the same and didn’t vanish simply because I was back in my own grasses and tress.

If we organized 100 people right now, in the middle of spring to all walk outside together and to go closely sniff freshly mowed grass and to drive around with the windows down for an hour, why is it that some would come back unable to breath and the others would come back unscathed? Collectively, we’re known to blame the outdoors and all of its lurking budding and wind swept nature.

What if it’s not the natural environment’s fault?

We are made to heal and to adapt to our environment. When we find ourselves at the mercy of the simple natural world doing it’s natural thing, we might heed the check engine light on the dashboard of our adaptive capabilities.

I, personally no longer struggle with seasonal allergies, regardless of my geographical location…unless I’m struggling with adaptation (which occurs occasionally). It occurs to me now that maybe it wasn’t the Florida change in fauna but the extreme stress I experienced in moving to Florida (and not speaking english) as a sophomore in hight school. I think I would have felt more empowered if someone had helped me make the connection.

Our ability to adapt is directly proportional to our quality of health. Always and without exception. Even with Covid, we know that it was those who struggled with adaptation whom had the most deleterious consequences.

We know that cancer results from an imbalance in the cellular clean up of mutated or diseased cells which comes as a result of maladaptation.

We know that autoimmune disease occurs when the body starts to attack itself due to maladaptation. Allergies are no different.

There are 4 precise stresses that interfere with adaptation:

1. Physical stress - injuries, poor ergonomics, too much sitting, poor posture, repetitive stresses.

2. Chemical stress - drugs, toxins, processed foods, cleaning products, chemically based make-ups etc…

3. Electromagnetic stress - 5G, Electronics, Cell phones

4. Emotional stress

We’re all to some degree, exposure to some or all of these stresses. The body’s center of interpretation which handles and increases our efficiency in dealing with stress is entirely found in the NERVOUS SYSTEM.

The spine and nervous system are the foundation for health and healing in the body, largely because when this foundation is solid, adaptation comes naturally.

When it comes to seasonal allergies specifically, the chiropractic lifestyle has been shown time and time again to drastically lessen and to help eliminate allergies and sinus problems.

It is our recommendation that in additional to making chiropractic care a part of your lifestyle and eliminating the above mentioned stress as much as possible, having the following foods and herbs can help tremendously:

1-2 tsp of local honey everyday (to ingest local pollens) 5-7 grains of local bee pollen everyday A stinging nettles supplement (2-6 per day)

When it comes to allergies, we believe that you can always heal. We see this everyday. Chiropractic adjustments, real foods, the above listed foods and supplements and 7-10 hours of sleep will make a tremendous difference.

Make Spring great again.

Dr. Anik